The Justice Department’s hired legal gun, David Boies, had pushed all of Bill’s buttons, and Bill took it from there. Rather than simply respond to Boies’s questions, he belittled them: “What do you mean by Internet software?” Not only is that question ridiculous, but I’m going to explain just how ridiculous it is—and how clueless you are about the software business.

John Roach, a tall, plainspoken Texan who was en route to becoming Tandy’s chairman and CEO. He was not a man to be trifled with. “Now,” Roach said in a thick drawl, “can you boys really deliver a BASIC interpreter that works for our computer?” “We believe we can,” Bill said, and then he rattled off some of our software’s outstanding features. Roach nodded and said, “And how much is this going to cost me?” And Bill said as coolly as he could, “Fifty thousand dollars.” “That,” Roach said flatly, “is the biggest pile of horseshit I ever heard.” Bill and I looked at...

if I had only ten qualities to enumerate in drafting a thumbnail biographical sketch of him, they would be: pious, brave, generous, intelligent, charismatic, patient, visionary, stubborn, egalitarian, and, most of all, realistic—he is a man who has grasped the timeless truth that wars are only won by killing.

Note:Finished! Turn off Fox News and read this compelling and insightful biography by an ex CIA officer.